Battling the Heat

Dear dedicated reader,

The air hangs like a thick, wet blanket over everything here. The last few days have been so hot and humid, even the most hardy locals are complaining loudly as the sweat drips in salty droplets down their faces. It’s too hot to eat, to sleep, to teach, and so it’s lucky that today is a school holiday.

Despite the heat induced malaise, I watched yesterday evening as families banded together on the main street, combining what collective energy remains to decorate the town for the ten day Festival of Ganesh-ji, the god with the head of an elephant. As we walked to the phone booth yesterday, Melissa and I stopped on the narrow street to watch as strings of lights and paper flags were thrown back and forth between men leaning precariously out of second story windows.

“Teacher, would you like to see the garumpati?” I looked down as I felt a tug on my kurta. The small children whose high pitched voices follow us with cries of “Teacher! Oh, Teacher!” everywhere we walk had crowded around Melissa and I, boxing us in and insisting that we go into one of the houses to see the garumpati, whatever that may be.

As a roll of heat thunder resounded in the sky, we dutifully followed, swept into the house by small hands and feet. The light was switched on and I gasped a little as the light revealed a neon blue, pink, yellow and seven foot statue of Ganesh. I turned to one of the older girls.

“Did you make this?” I asked her wonderingly.

“All of us, we put these jewels,” she explained, gesturing towards the statue. “The paint was there. This is our garampati,” which I deduced means statue made for this purpose. She continued, “Tomorrow we will put it outside and then in ten days, we will carry to the river and…” she struggled for the words she wanted in English, “put it there?”

“You’ll dump it in the river?” I paraphrased.
“Ah yes,” she said, with an agreeable head waggle, “like this.”

I looked at the statue admiringly. “So, tomorrow, when there is no school, it is so people can come look at the garampati?”

“Yes,” she said with excitement, her eyes flashing, “and ma’am, you must come!” I agreed with a smile.

All over town, hutches for the garampatis have been erected, both large and small. Temporary structures, they are made of large pieces of wood with tin roofs, humble looking on the outside, but inside lined with fabulously patterned cloth, palm leaves, and have lanterns hung from the ceiling. As we exited the house, I watched as a small boy, no more than four feet tall, struggled to lift a giant palm leaf twice his size upright and lean it against the outer wall of the hutch. Another man immediately grabbed it and latched it into place.

In the morning, I was roused from my sleep by the sound of music issuing from beyond the enclosure of the school gates. True to our word, we dressed quickly and walked down to the temple next to the school. The garampati had been placed spectacularly in the center of the extravagantly lined hutch and surrounded by smaller statues of Ganesh, all bejeweled and painted colors of bright orange, pink, blue and yellow. Music issued from an unassuming mobile phone which had been hooked up to a blaring speaker system which pointed out over the main square of the town.

The puja was just beginning and we were pushed into the crowd standing at the opening to the hutch.

“Aisai!” (Like this!) One of the little boys in a red shirt shouted to me, clapping his hands wildly in time to the song that everyone around us was singing with fervour, clapping all the while and stamping their feet. I joined in and around me the clapping seemed to get more vigorous every time hands made contact in time to the music.

The clapping stopped and some chanting began. The person leading would shout and everyone around seemed to know exactly what to shout back. Melissa and I simply watched as they lit some small offerings in a large tray. This tray was then brought around to everyone standing at the edge of the enclosure. I eyed it as it traveled closer to me, trying to memorize the gesture that everyone seemed to make over it as they waved their hands and touched their hearts and then their heads. The fear of offending is always imminent. When it finally came to me, I hesitated, looked around for outside confirmation that they did, indeed, want me to participate, and then half-heartedly waved my hand over the flames and then brought them up towards my head. I breathed a sigh of relief as my gesture inspired approving nods from those around me. Disaster averted once again.

Or perhaps it only seemed that way. I felt a hand on my arm and I looked up into the face of the man who delivers our boxes of (bourgeois) bottled water on a tri-weekly basis.

“Paise?” He asked me. (Money?)

“Uh, sorry?” I replied, confused, hoping he’d let go of my arm.

He did, but only to brandish a pink pad with a form in Gujarati in my face. “Paise!” he insisted once again.

I was still confused. “I don’t understand,” I said in Hindi.

He started to explain something in rapid Gujarati.

“I don’t speak Gujarati,” I said lamely.

Someone came over and took his hand, saying something to him in Gujarati. He retorted something quickly back and they looked at me. The impression I got was that I was supposed to give money, but instead this person was saying I shouldn’t have to. I decided that if the students can pretend they don’t understand my English when an assignment is due, it’s my right to do the same.

“I don’t understand,” I repeated again as they continued to look at me expectantly. The person arguing with water-man explained that he should leave us alone and he turned and left in a huff.

Living in India Rule #1: Don’t piss off the guy who brings you water.

Of course, I had little time to contemplate the potential ramifications of my actions in that moment, as just then Melissa and I were led by the arm and positioned in front of the statue of Ganesh-ji, suddenly blinded by people taking flash photos using their nifty hand-held camera phones. A perspiring diva, I tried unsuccessfully to hide the sweat stains on my kurta with my dupatta (scarf). Aishwarya Rai, I am not.

Best,
Cat